Bjorkus heaves with Gabe and then stares in disbelief at what's happened to the dwarf.
"Glue? Tell me we've a got a way to get this s~~! off of him."
Rilka doesn’t recognize the glue, but thankfully Dalton does. Her heart sinks seeing Toramin standing there, head and part of his armor covered in glue. This is my fault, she thinks. It’s my job to find the traps. She holds Toramin’s hands and gives them a gentle squeeze.
”We need universal solvent. I can’t make it,” Rilka says not hiding the disappointment in her voice. ”I’m almost positive I’ve seen it in at least one of the city’s shops. We’ll need to guide him. Any volunteers?” She wonders who would be the best for that task among the escaping people. The cleric?
She traces the letters of Toramin’s name on his open palm then adds, ”W-e...w-i-l-l...h-e-l-p...y-o-u.”
Rilka knows that the Lightning Lords are probably powerful enough to help and the masked healers have a good chance of having it as well.
Gabriel glances to Rilka, then takes a deep breath. What followed was likely quite painful for everyone else. Gabriel's tail goes ridged as he lets out a violent wail, a perfectly pitched high note that got higher every second until it was just a loud ringing. He had learned to do this as a kid, almost by accident, but he didn't really use it that often. His voice, laced with destructive sonic magic, seeps into the glue Gabriel was focusing on in an attempt to free Toramin of at least some of it.
Bjorkus's bovine ears twitch unhappily as they're assaulted by Gabe's wail but the bull can't argue with the results. He claps the young paladin on the shoulders heartily.
"Can ya do that again?"
Gabriel takes several moments to catch his breath, but he shakes his head when he finally does. One hand goes up to his throat and he says, with a raw voice, "I usually need to sleep it off. The one time I tried doing it twice without rest, it felt like my throat was being torn apart and I ended up blacking out. I should be able to clear his ears off tomorrow though, if we haven't gotten the solvent by then."
Is this better?"
Toramin blinks the flecks of the dried glue from his eyes.
Gabriel gives Toramin the thumbs up, then gestures to the dwarf's eyes, and then to Rilka. He hoped Toramin got the message as he stood straight and looked to the freed prisoners, then down to the pit.
Is this better?"
Toramin blinks the flecks of the dried glue from his eyes.
"Alright everyone, lets continue to proceed carefully. Those that can't jump will be carefully tossed across instead. Bjorkus and I should be able to handle it."
"Well, I will not be tossed! These legs have some use left in them!"
Bjorkus helps folks across and, when his turn comes, hops over the small pit himself.
"Onwards! Soon we shall escape this vile durance!"
”Well done Gabe!” Rilka says, seeing that the glue shattered from Toramin’s eyes. The halfling grabs Toramin’s hands and bows deeply, pressing her forehead to his hands. ”I’m sorry,” she says when she makes eye contact again, hoping he can read her lips. She writes out a note while the escapees are crossing the five-foot wide pit.
The Lightning Lords or the masked healers can probably help you. Once again I’m sorry. Time to do better!
”Like I told Toramin in the note,” Rilka says to the others, ”The Lightning Lords or the masked healers can help. Onwards, yes!” She returns to exploring the tunnel for traps, concentrating heavily.
Toramin squeezes Rilka's hand reassuringly. "You are not to blame. Whomever wasted a dragon's horde of wealth on that trap is."
Cursed. Glued. Rescued slaves, including on of their own number? What will the healers think?
Toramin had always liked Rilka. He liked that ostensibly she was in charge. Order is very important to Toramin, even if she never really told the group what to do. But when the dwarf thought of people with whom he would trust his life? Well, before he had always thought of those braves souls who stood with him against the mad king, except Lindale, whom he neither liked nor trusted. Now deaf and covered in dried gunk, Toramin adds one more name to that list.
Toramin moves on, his most important sense returned. But the deafness is a new sensation, causing him to swivel his head more often to check the dark areas in his senses.
The party wanders on for a while without incident, then comes in from the east entrance to their starting point. They go back out and try a new direction but end up coming through the southern entrance to their starting point. They try again and then discover the last entrance to the starting point again. After some massive backtracking that is extremely time consuming and frustrating they find that the entire trapped area they went through was nothing but dead ends and head off in a new direction.
The party is only a few dozen feet into their new direction when Rilka stops them. Set in the walls are very subtle depictions of maidens with their hands clasped over their heart, and on their heads are some kind of writing that can only be read up very close. However she notices several small holes at about chest level that she is sure are some sort of trap. Dalton also detect magic on the walls of the enchantment school.
"Halt a moment. Something is amiss here." The wizard detected spells which - while not his specialty - were clearly in that breed. "There is mind-tugging magic on these walls here. I don't much care for the look of those statues either."
Toramin cannot think of any useful advice to give Dalton.
Gabriel looks at Dalton rather then the walls themselves, his curiosity nearly getting the better of him but his sharp mind realizing that whatever sort of mind-tugging magic that was in the walls could be activated by looking to closely at it. "Everyone avert your eyes for the moment. Dalton, can you determine what sort of magic is in them while Rilka studies the traps?"
"I'll focus my thoughts. A moment."
Rilka ponders the bas-relief and walls, racking her memory for a reference to a legend, tale, or history.
”Enchantment?” she says, voice raised in curiosity. ”Do you think those words might be the trigger for a spell? Using a mirror, standing on the side of the holes, we could probably read them. If we had a mirror. Are you thinking if we progress further down the corridor the magic will assault us, compelling us to read the words?” The halfling thinks of ways to get past the magical aspects of the trap, before moving on to the more mechanical and non-magical aspects of disabling the trap.
Dalton guesses that something about reading the words on the maidens would cast a spell on the reader.
The holes are about the size of needles. Rilka uses some needle shaped blocks from her thieves kit and believes she has the trap disabled, then with a few whispered words and a wave of her hand she also believes she has disarmed the magical part of the trap.
After about five minutes of uneventful winding in the tunnels the party turns a corner and sees a turn or door that is blocked by a white fog wall. The fog tumbles in upon itself and is constantly in motion, but appears to be completely stationary and offers no sight of what lies beyond it.
After looking over it nobody believes that it is trapped in any way. Dalton detects moderate conjuration magic which is focused on the fog. On the right side of the fog 'door' are words etched into the wall. Harkt dril klae ekess slathalin.
Bjorkus studies the strange words etched on the walls. Surprisingly, he understands them.
”Right reason applied to practice”, he rumbles. ”That’s what it says.”
He shakes his shaggy head. ”I’ve got no idea what that’s supposed to mean.”
Bjorkus continues to be baffled.
"That's a teaching of Abadar, almost. The words are a little different but it's speaking of prudence. A warning? What be prudent to do at this moment, to travel through a cloud of mist? Get lights? Use a secure line?" Gabriel looks to the others in the party curiously, having rarely ever dealt with this sort of weather himself.
Bjorkus snorts as he considers Gabe’s explanation.
”Out on the water, we’d use a lodestone to feel our way forward when a fogbank rolls in. Anybody got somethin’ like that?”
Being deaf, Toramin hears neither the whispers nor his teammates.
”Rilka, can you write this down for the dwarf?”, Bjorkus says after noting the blank stare on Toramin’s face.
Bjorkus inches forward to study the mist.
"Well the only way to go is forward. Do we have enough rope to string everyone together?"
Gabriel takes out the rope again, having held onto it this time in case anyone needed a quick save from another pit, and offers one end to the other party members. "I have little experience with fog, but Toramin's going to have the most trouble here. With his hearing cut off, he'll only have obscured vision. I suggest if some of us go in, he remains out here with the rest. We can use this rope as a sort of life line for those that go in, as sound might not be easy to follow in the fog. If someone with this wrapped around their back reaches the other end, we can all follow it too them... so long as they run into nothing in the fog itself, or the length of the fog isn't longer then this.."
Bjorkus isn't sure what the purpose of the fog is.
Gabe looks at the fog, then wraps the rope around his waist. He realized that some of the prisoners must think them paranoid, but considering the traps they had already encountered here Gabe was taking no chances. He looks to the others, then reaches out a hand and touches the cloud. If nothing happens, such as the cloud trying to kill him, burning or the like, the paladin offers the other end of the rope to Toramin. "No idea whats in there... Two tugs for trouble, pull me out. Three tugs for safety. If the rope falls, I might be on the ground, pull me out then too."
Gabe then turns to the fog door and steps through it.
Bjorkus helps rope the line of prisoners together.
Gabriel touches the fog...and it basically feels like fog, just a wisp of air brushing on his hand. He steps through it...and it basically acts like fog. He steps through it fine and becomes completely unable to see. But after a moment it's apparent you can't hear him either, and the rope remains taught.
The fog has now become as solid as a brick wall. Gabriel can pull the rope further in, but any piece of rope that comes in doesn't go back out. He is completely cut off from the party and unable to communicate with them in any way, including tugging the rope.
The room appears to be a 30 foot by 30 foot unadorned room. In the center is a small hole that is a little over 10 liters in volume, if the mark on the side of it with a line that says '10 liters' is anything to judge by.
Noting that the rope was still taut, Bjorkus simply waits.
Gabriel notices nothing else around the room besides the hole, although he does note that there are small cleaned spots of dried blood, mostly around the hole..
A minute passes with no reaction from the rope. Then two minutes. Then five. Then ten. It remains taut.
After some time Gabriel finds some false tiles in the floor near the north and south walls, each of them containing and old, beat up, blood stained dagger. In one of them is a hastily scrawled note with drops of dried blood on it. don't go alone
Beginning to worry about the young paladin, Bjorkus approaches the wall.
"Boy, can ya hear me?" he bellows. "You alright?"
The bull gives the rope a hard tug.
There is no response to Bjorkus's yelling. He gives the rope a hard tug and finds it completely immobile, not giving any length at all.
Having inspected it thoroughly, Gabriel was almost certain the key to the puzzle in this part of the maze was filling the hole. Blood was likely the only option one would have and the reason the note said don't do it alone was because that would be lethal. Gabriel could likely fill a lot of the hole on his own, using his magic to restore his blood and heal the cuts, but not only would that leave him running on empty near the end it wouldn't be enough. He needed help. Everyone, really, or at least whoever had Lindale's healing wand, to come in. But the only way to let them know something was going on was to... Gabriel walks back to the brick wall that was the fog and pulls at the rope. He had learned upon walking in that he could pull more and more in, maybe he could take the entire length? They would know something happened and hopefully they'd come in force. Gabriel begins, pulling slowly at the rope.